waffle house food
Áine Cain / Business Insider
  • Lee Sanderlin had to spend 24 hours at a Waffle House after finishing last in his fantasy football league.
  • Each waffle he ate took one hour off of his sentence.
  • Sanderlin ate nine and was able to leave the restaurant after 15 hours.
  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

"Surely it won't be me," he thought.

Lee Sanderlin's fantasy football league was determining an appropriate punishment for the unfortunate player who finished last in the pool, and Sanderlin had seen something called "The Waffle House Challenge" on the internet.

The rules of the challenge are simple: spend 24 hours at a Waffle House, the always-open Southern diner chain. For every waffle eaten, one hour gets removed from the sentence.

"That would be hilarious to watch one of the other 11 members of our league go through that," Sanderlin wrote in a reflection on the experience for the Mississippi Clarion Ledger, where he is an investigative reporter.

"Whatever way you spin it, I ended up screwed," he added.

After finishing dead-last in his league, Sanderlin duly reported to a Waffle House in Brandon, Mississippi, at 4:07 p.m. CT on Thursday and began live-tweeting his marathon eating session.

Armed with books, magazines, and podcasts, he tucked into his first pair of waffles in just over 20 minutes. An hour later, with another pair of waffles down, Sanderlin tweeted he was "dead on the inside."

The fifth waffle vaulted him past 2,000 calories in just three hours. The sixth sent him to the bushes behind the restaurant to… make space.

At 2:25 he had cleared waffle number seven, at which point he settled into his booth to listen to the rest of his podcasts and do crossword puzzles.

Then, shortly after sunrise, Sanderlin ordered what would be his final pair of waffles, which he managed to put away in about 30 minutes.

By Friday morning, his thread had gone viral, was trending on Twitter, and written up in outlets including The Washington Post and the New York Times.

"I'm never eating waffles again," Sanderlin tweeted at 6:37 a.m. this morning. "That's 9 waffles and 15 hours in this restaurant. [Shoutout] to the staff for letting me hang out on a slow night (I tipped them well don't worry). This was horrible and I recommend no one ever do this."

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